As a material that provides a high quality image with image stability at a low price, a silver halide photographic light-sensitive material has been widely used until today. Demands for improvements on image quality, stability of quality and productivity by users have been remarkably increasing in recent years. As to the demands for improvements on image quality, it is wanted to improve pure whiteness, color reproduction, sharpness, etc. As to the demands for improvements on quality stability, it is necessary to improve production stability of a light-sensitive material, fastness with the lapse of time in the unexposed state, and performance stability during developing processing. As to the improvement in productivity, improvements on processing speed are wanted.
In photographic light-sensitive materials for direct view such as a color paper and a color reversal, first of all color reproduction is important. For improvement of color reproduction, it is essential that dyes formed by a coupling reaction between a dye-forming coupler (hereinafter sometimes referred to simply as “a coupler”) and an oxidized product of aromatic primary amine compound (specifically an oxidized p-phenylenediamine-series color developing agent) have small unwanted absorption and they are excellent in absorption characteristics. In addition, it is important to reduce a residual color owing to remaining sensitizing dyes and dyes for prevention of irradiation (irradiation-neutralizing dyes) and also fogging. A secondary importance is to have high image preservability after formation of color images. Therefore, this industry has conducted studies of long-term stabilization of color images through effective control of decomposition of dyes by light and heat, e.g., with the aid of selection of couplers and high boiling organic solvents to be used, and addition of image stabilizers.
In recent photographic processing service business, color prints from digital information sources, such as digital cameras, have come to be obtained with ease and rapidity by virtue of widespread use of printing devices utilizing digital exposure, and there has been a growth in occasion to produce image outputs in the form of color prints. For the color printing business, efficiency enhancements including reduction in time period from print exposure to color development processing has been required mainly with the intention of increasing a production speed in photofinishing laboratory and improving customer service. Examples of a general method for improving rapid processing suitability of color photographic light-sensitive materials include:    (1) Reduction in a coating amount of organic materials by means of, for example, employing a coupler that forms a dye having a large molar extinction coefficient,    (2) Reduction in a coating amount of a silver halide emulsion attendant upon (1),    (3) Reduction in both a coating amount of a hydrophilic binder and a thickness of the entire photographic constitutional layers attendant upon (1),    (4) Employment of a coupler having a high activity, and    (5) Employment of a silver halide emulsion that can be processed at a high developing speed.In order to provide a photosensitive material suitable for ultra-rapid processing in color-development and desilvering steps, this industry also has tried reduction in coating amounts of silver in a photosensitive material by means of, for example, employment of a coupler that can form a dye having a high molar extinction coefficient and has made efforts to achieve [1] and [2] for the purpose of preventing undesired stains from occuring by leaving ingredients of processing solutions in processed prints.
Examples of couplers having high activity and high molecular extinction coefficient, suitable for the foregoing photosensitive materials, as improved couplers of conventional acylacetanilide-series compounds include 1-alkylcyclopropanecarbonylacetanilide-series compounds (cf. JP-A-4-218042 (“JP-A” means unexamined published Japanese patent application)), cyclic malonediamide-type yellow couplers (cf. JP-A-5-11416), heterocyclic acetanilide yellow couplers (cf. JP-A-2003-173007), pyrazoloazole magenta couplers (cf. JP-A-63-041851 and JP-A-6-043611), pyrroloazole-type cyan couplers (cf EP-A1-0488248 and EP-A1-0291197) and pyrrolotriazole-type cyan couplers (cf. JP-A-2001-342189 and JP-A-2002-287311).
Such couplers are generally formed into fine-particle dispersions of lipophilic components including couplers and other ingredients soluble in organic solvents and incorporated in hydrophilic colloid layers. More specifically, the lipophilic components include couplers, high boiling organic solvents, polymers insoluble in water and soluble in organic solvents, and various other organic materials used, e.g., for prevention of color-mixing and image stabilization. Of these organic materials, high boiling organic solvents have been studied in this industry also because they not only have been used as coupler solvents, but also they affect many photographic properties, such as the fastness of photosensitive materials after production, color forming performance upon color development processing, and the preservability of color images after formed.
However, it was not always sufficient to merely adopt the above couplers capable of forming dyes with high molecular extinction coefficient for achievement of further improvements in rapid processing suitability through the aforementioned reductions in coating amounts of organic materials and the total thickness of photographic constituent layers. Although a photosensitive material suitable for washing and drying steps in ultra-rapid processing can be obtained by reduction in usage of organic materials other than couplers, such as high boiling organic solvents, and its accompanying reduction in usage of gelatin binder, cases sometimes occurred in which color formation characteristics, hue and image preservability are impaired. Further, there were cases where organic materials in a photosensitive material migrated between their constituent layers during time-lapse storage to aggravate undesirable uneven density. Of these migrations, fears have been entertained as to interlayer migration of color-mixing inhibitors in particular.
There are known photographic elements and arts, such as the photographic element having a color enhancing layer between an emulsion layer and a color-mixing inhibiting layer (cf U.S. Pat. No. 5,576,159), the color photographic light-sensitive materials wherein a coupler-containing layer and an emulsion layer are adjacent to each other as separate layers (cf. JP-A-4-75055 and EP-0062202-A1), the multilayered photographic element made up of light-sensitive layers and light-insensitive dye-forming layers without containing any color-mixing inhibiting layer (cf. U.S. Pat. No. 6,268,116), and the art of forming a color-mixing inhibiting interlayer into a multilayer structure made up of light-insensitive inter layers having color-mixing inhibiting property different from one another (cf JP-A-4-110844).
However, when ultra-rapid processing is carried out actually, it is further required to overcome various problems including compatibility between the foregoing rapid processing suitability and image preservability.